


Ghost in the Machine

by TaleWorthTelling



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Family, Friendship, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Implied Child Abuse, Misunderstandings, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-17 23:44:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaleWorthTelling/pseuds/TaleWorthTelling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was that time of year again when every major station had their retrospective on Howard Stark’s legacy. Well, not every year, really; most years it was a passing glance. But this year Tony was even louder in everyone’s ears than ever before. He was an Avenger, a subject that endlessly fascinated the public, so of course they would drag up his dad to remind people to tune in.</p><p> </p><p>It was bittersweet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost in the Machine

It was that time of year again when every major station had their retrospective on Howard Stark’s legacy. Well, not every year, really; most years it was a passing glance. But this year Tony was even louder in everyone’s ears than ever before. He was an Avenger, a subject that endlessly fascinated the public, so of course they would drag up his dad to remind people to tune in.

It was bittersweet.

-

The first time it happened, he thought it was just a fluke. Bound to happen, really. People just had this idea, and no one really knew the truth. 

“Stark…“ 

He grinned at Natasha, pretending she hadn’t all but cornered him in the kitchen for reasons unknown. “Yes, agent?”

“If…” It looked as though the words were being forced out of her by way of rusty pulleys. “If you ever need to talk … I can promise that I won’t inject you with any chemical compounds.”

He blinked. “Um. Yes. Good. Now that we’ve established that—“ 

“And of course it would stay between us. Provided that none of the information you shared was a threat to global security.” She smiled, and it looked real, if strained, not the perfect doll expression she had cultivated for her work.

“Of course.”

“Good. Whatever you need.” And then she left the room, silent as a cat, as if she’d never been there.

That was weird. Pretty fucking weird. But it was Natasha, and he was never really quite sure about anything where she was concerned, so it was just as well. He put it out of mind until later that week.

-

It was a little harder to explain when Thor wandered into his lab with a six-pack of beer on each shoulder and proclaimed that idle talk was useless in the face of the demons of one’s past. Tonight they would drink to a bright future and the comfort to be taken in one’s companions, for he, too, knew the pain of coming up short in the eyes of one’s creator.

Or that’s what Tony thought he might have said, thinking about it later, since he did get pretty epically trashed. (Not on the beer – he took one of those out of politeness, then broke into his stash of booze and drank in style with an ancient warrior alien hell-bent on ridding Tony of whatever ailed him, if it was the last thing they both did.)

At first Tony thought that maybe Thor was the one seeking comfort. Eventually, somewhere around the time his vision started to blur and Thor’s beard became hysterically funny, it occurred to him that, like Natasha, Thor was offering support. For something. Something about coming up short and never being good enough. Which was ridiculous, because Tony fucking Stark was pretty incredible. He measured up in most of the ways that counted, if he thought so himself, and he was seriously working on the ones where he didn’t. He was tinkering on himself all the time, like his designs; never complete, always room for a better version.

But Thor was pretty drunk, too, having also found Tony’s liquor (after both six packs), so Tony didn’t figured it mattered. He settled on being confused and enjoying the night anyway, toasting to Thor’s ancestors (but curiously not to Tony’s own).

-

It didn’t get downright bizarre until Clint rushed to turn off the TV lightning fast when Tony walked into the living room on the shared floor. He looked sheepishly at Tony, then at his hands, then at Tony again, then at the TV, then again with his damn hands, and of course once more at Tony. Then he seemed to come to a decision. He nodded to himself once, took a deep breath, and stood up.

“You’re valuable to this team, you know,” he said, not looking Tony in the eye, until, hello, suddenly he stared Tony right in the eye. “And not just the team. You’re a good person. And you’re my friend. So … that’s that.” He nodded again, his job apparently done, and marched right the hell out of the room.

And even Tony, stunned as he was, couldn’t mistake that declaration as Clint’s own insecure confession. He was pretty sure Clint liked himself just fine where it counted.

But he didn’t get the chance to question Clint’s intentions, good as he was at disappearing when he didn’t want to be found. So he just went back to his lab to wonder exactly which life choices had led him to this week.

-

Bruce didn’t corner him, naturally, because he was Bruce and just didn’t do that to people; and he didn’t sneak up on Bruce, of course, because people just did not do that to Bruce and expect it to end well. So it was out of the blue, while they were already working together in Bruce’s lab for the day, when Bruce turned to him and said, “I just want you to know – I. I get it.”

“The formula? Great. There’s a reason I didn’t pursue biology as a career, and not just dear old Dad’s company.”

“No, I …”

Tony looked up.

“Really, I … You’ve done amazing things. You should be proud of them. No matter who agrees or doesn’t. “

And Bruce could be cryptic as fuck, but Tony was sensing a theme here, so he waited expectantly, nudging his goggles up his forehead and raising his eyebrows.

Bruce took one of his deep, calming breaths (which reaffirmed Tony’s decision to remain absolutely silent instead of taking out his serious existential crisis on poor Bruce). He folded his arms over his chest, tucked his hands under his arms; his go-to pose for difficult conversations. The one that Tony knew made him feel smaller, safer, remote. Tony was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

“Everyone here believes in you. And even if you didn’t do all of these wonderful, incredible things, you would still be a wonderful, incredible person. You’re just good, and nobody could take that away or wear you down. I admire that.”

So that was it for Bruce’s sharing hour, since he immediately clammed up and all but dove into his cultured spores. That had obviously been very important to Bruce, a huge gesture on his normally reticent part; possibly the kindest, most sincere words anyone had ever said to him. If only Tony knew what to do with that.

-

Still, even with all of the weirdness going on around him, the tenseness with his team, the extra effort they made to be around him and touch his shoulder and smile at him and just plain say hello, it didn’t get really goddamn annoying until Captain America himself decided to offer his two cents in all his wholesome glory.

“I read your file. The one Natasha wrote.”

“You mean Natalie?” Tony offered distractedly. Seriously, between all of the unexpected visits and mandatory team bonding activities this week, he was beginning to think that these circuits were never going to get soldered. “’Cause there was that whole ulterior motive thing.”

“Right.” Cap leaned his perfect all-American ass back onto one of Tony’s less cluttered workbenches, far away from where he could be a nuisance, and crossed his arms over his chest. And it was only kind of weird that there was no star there, because, really, Tony was not six years old, and now that he was one, he got that superheroes had downtime. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“You and everyone else in this dysfunctional bat cave.”

Cap said nothing.

Tony sighed, resigned himself to finishing this at three in the morning when everyone would probably be pretending to sleep or destroying punching bags or each other sparring. “Seriously, what gives? Nobody in this place is a social butterfly, you know, and yet I’ve had more non-life-threatening interactions in the past week than I think any of us have had in the entire time I’ve been your gracious host.”

“We’ve been concerned.”

“Someone is usually concerned about me. Why this week?”

Cap’s lips pressed into a thin line, his eyes faraway. “I wish I could have been there for you. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference, but you would have known, at least.”

The atmosphere in the room had changed. Tony tensed. “What …” He cleared his throat, narrowed his eyes, choked back the incredulity. “I would have known what?”

“That you were loved. That you were extraordinary. That nobody should have to live that way, no matter their standing in life.”

Stunned as he was, a response was surely out of the question. Cap had either been terribly concussed or – and Tony was starting to get a sinking feeling – was seriously on the wrong track of something.

After a moment, Cap continued, his voice gaining strength, that familiar Captain America speech cadence playing around the edges. “We’ve all lived turbulent lives, Tony, in more ways than anyone should have to face. Clint and Bruce alone demonstrate that. Hell, I’m not immune. People have power over you, they throw their weight around when you’re young and vulnerable, and you feel like you’re alone, sometimes, in your burden. That you deserve it, that you’re unworthy.” His voice lowered, and now it was all Steve, with no Cap in sight. “We’ve all been told we were nothing. We’ve all … faced violence too young. I’m sure you can guess what orphanages at the height of the Depression were like.

“Whatever Howard did … I’m not going to excuse it. I remember him as a good man, but I didn’t know him for long. He could have become anybody. And whoever he was to you, however he hurt you, from the bottom of my heart, I wish I had been there to look out for you. To have someone on your side.”

Tony was sure they could both hear his heart beating in the poignant silence that followed. Steve, for all his six-foot-plus height and barrel chest, was mirroring Bruce’s posturing and doing a bang up job of making himself smaller. Protecting himself. Covering up old wounds Tony had never even known about.

And fuck that. He couldn’t take it anymore. Not Captain America baring his soul in all its chipped and stained reality.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he all but screamed.

Steve flinched, but he held his ground, like the good soldier he was. His gaze had never left Tony, but he had the grace to at least glance away for a moment. And Tony knew that, whatever he said, Steve wouldn’t fight back, wouldn’t defend himself, out of some misguided sense of duty to Tony. Steve thought Tony needed to rage and scream and purge his anger, and Steve was willing to be that target.

That sobered Tony right the hell up. He slammed down his tools, but that was the only concession he made to the churning in his stomach. He very calmly faced Steve and declared, in a calm, level voice that brooked no argument, “I don’t know what you guys have been telling each other, but Howard was a great man. We had a screwy relationship, sure, but if you’re implying what I think you’re implying, and I really hope you’re not, then you need to back up a minute for me. Howard never hit me. Ever. No discussion about this.”

He paused, breathing heavily through his nose, somewhat taken aback by the intensity of his reaction. Oh, God, was that what Bruce had meant? Had he thought that Howard was anything like the real monster that called himself Bruce Banner’s father? Did Clint think they were kin in this regard, brothers forged through the blood of their shared silence? That he had been degraded and beaten down?

He was stopping that thought cold.

He was setting them straight once and for all, and then he could go back to having highly mixed and unresolved feelings about his father’s memory in scotch-tinged peace, before anyone else poured their hearts out to him out of solidarity.

“I know there’s a long file detailing all the ways he could have been a better dad, but without him, I wouldn’t even exist. And for all that there have been times when I wished I didn’t, he gave me everything I needed to survive and thrive, and when I thought it was over, he gave me a hand from beyond the grave. Not too shabby. Everybody has complicated relationships with their parents.”

“It’s not complicated if you ever doubted his love for you,” Steve said, undeterred, “whether he laid hands on you or not.”

“Everyone has doubts in their youth. Dad wasn’t a terribly accessible guy. Neither am I, really.”

“No. You wear your heart on your sleeve.”

“The hell I do. Look, if you’re all trying to comfort me about this whole Howard Stark memorial extravaganza the media is having a self-congratulatory circle jerk about, how you know the real truth while everyone else fawns over him, then you can save it. I loved my dad, flaws and all, even with my doubts, and I was proud of him, ‘cause he was my dad. It … It hurt when he died. Him and Mom. And I missed him, even when I hated him. So offer your condolences about that, maybe, instead of assuming that there’s nothing good I remember about the old bastard. He doesn’t deserve to be forgotten just because he had absolutely no idea how to be a parent. He gave me what was important: life and science. We shared that, even when we shared nothing else.”

Tony turned back to his tools, but his hands were shaking, so he clenched them and breathed. “It … does mean a lot, you know. That you would all do this for me. I know it must be hard to talk about those things, and I didn’t even realize what was going on, how hard you’ve all been trying. You’re all pretty incredible people, too. And no one should ever have told you differently.” He turned back to Steve, still leaning on the table, still big and small at once. “But … we’re kind of … family-like now, aren’t we? This whole thing you guys have done this week … I’ve heard that’s what families are supposed to do. Look out for each other.”

Steve looked torn between digging his heels in and conceding. He looked Tony up and down, looked around the lab, at the scientific wonders made by Tony’s hands, a legacy gift from his father. The one that made up for everything else. He smiled, small and maybe sad but real. “We’ve always done that. Maybe … we can all lay old ghosts to rest.” He shoved off of the table and walked over to Tony. “So what new wonder are you working on today?”

**Author's Note:**

> So I found this on my computer recently and realized that I must have tried to write something a few months ago and then totally forgotten. And I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would, despite not having written in a few years, so I thought I'd post it before I chickened out. Not sure about my characterization, but I was really hoping to show a more nuanced side to Tony and Howard's relationship. Of course, just because Tony defends him doesn't mean that Howard *wasn't* worse than Tony lets on, but I got the impression that Tony loved him anyway and would defend him. Because it's his dad, and sometimes people are loyal to their family even when they might not deserve it. So it's ambiguous. Just a different take.
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
